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UPDATE: I hear Pasdar will be paid through the end of the season. Very weird.
So I watched this show its first season, loved it, and then never watched again. (My inner geek was satiated.) Still, Adrian Pasdar's forced exit is surprising unless flying is no longer considered a cool enough capability. More likely is that the show keeps suffering lousy ratings because it never recovered from being interrupted during the writers strike. (Poor Tim Kring was collateral damage as well as his Heroes sequel.) Here are all the superheroes who've been axed from the series since Day One: Season 1 -- Tawny Cypress, Santiago Cabrera; Season 2 -- Noah Gray-Cabey, Dana Davis, Kristen Bell, Leonard Roberts; Season 3 -- Dania Ramirez. Given the failure of NBC network primetime these days, and Jeff Zucker's zeal to save money on shows, I wonder if the 4th season Heroes cast now will be whittled down to just people who can lift a fork from their plate to their mouth in order to save CGI costs.
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The writer’s strike had nothing to do with this show’s failure. The choice in season 2 to tell many disparate stories with no connection and no pay-off is what killed the show, trying the patience of viewers ad nauseum and ultimately losing their loyalty. Plenty of shows were interrupted by the strike, and while it can be a pain and hurt momentum in the short run, if it’s a good show that rewards its viewers along the way, it will sustain in the long run. Four years later, it’s just getting worse and worse. There was no long-term vision for this show, and so whereas season 1 built to a climax for the season, the rest of have been meandering around story-wise like a lost puppy.
You mean, kind of like that last sentence of yours?
Cast-of-thousands usually kills a show….How special are these heroes when there’s an anthill full of them, and more popping out of the woodwork at every turn. Focus on a few, instead of giving each story line 30 seconds. The attempts of making the good go bad and vice versa are unfortunately abandoned half way – 110 % good or bad is BORING ’cause PREDICTABLE. There IS a great show in there, which pops out from time to time, but FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS, and stop the charisma bleed (first Bell, now Pasdar – lose Quinto and you can close shop)
I’ve been hanging on the last 3 seasons, hoping they’d get back to an actual storyline- like they had in S1.
I haven’t seen anyone comment on the switcheroo they pulled with Ali Lartner’s Niki/Jessica Sanders & Tracy Strauss characters. Although her original Niki/Jessica character was a dud and needed to go, they really insulted th audience by sticking her into an entirely different role. The frequent changing of alliances and role-reversals also make it difficult to follow or or “get into” the characters.
Heroes Season I was possibly the best season of TV ever made (Rivaled only by Season I of Prison Break). Season II was rough. Season III-IV were ok. Season V is mediocre at best. Peter not having his power is infuriating. Sylar losing his ambiguity as a good/bad guy is dumb. Claire’s lesbian relationship with her roomate was about the dumbest thing I have ever seen. The story of the hospital is not going anywhere. Hero is driving me nuts that he doesn’t just hold still and get his braintumor fixed. Heaven forbid he just go to his resources of superhero friends who could fix the problem in like 2 seconds. Or that he get Sylar to fix his power for him like he did Charlie. Everything about this season is frustrating because it could all be fixed in 5 seconds by someone acting semi-rational. Season I was the height of the show, and it has not even come close to rivaling how good it was in season I. It also ticks me off to no end that the show brings in tons of characters (Flying Boyfriend, Crying Mexican Killer, Mimic Girl, etc.) who the viewers don’t like, so they just disappear. And then major characters like Micah get left out without any explanation.
The only struggle I have enjoyed watching this season is Parkman/Sylar. Everything else seems like a fight for ratings. I actually think the Carnival thing is pretty good as well. I think there is a lot of potential there and an endless reservoir of potential characters.
I miss the ambiguous Sylar. I miss Peter holding onto more than 1 power at one time… why not let Peter keep his old power and bring in a new villian or something that does what peter is doing now… that would have been an awesome 10 episodes or so of plot. I miss Hero on an actual quest that relates to saving the world. I miss the anticipation of some future event that decides the fate of everyone. I wish that the writers would sit back and write the entire season before starting to film and then listening to what the viewers like. At least write the show an entire season at a time. That’s how season 1 was. But all the other seasons have been pandering. The strike hurt, but not as much as the weak plot.
i’m not trying to be a bitch or anything, but i’d like to point out some key flaws in your rant here..
first of all, there are only 4 seasons, just fyi. they’re in the middle of airing the 4th one currently.
secondly, if all the characters acted rational and did exactly what they SHOULD do then they wouldn’t have a tv show. if you think about it, what hit tv show is about everything going right all the time?
and thirdly, you’re very mistaken that sylar has lost his ambiguity. i think even if he had lost all his humanity after the incident with his father, there is still some left fighting within him after harboring nathan’s spirit. i don’t think he’ll ever be gabriel again, but i certainly don’t think he’s lost ambiguity as a character.
you do make good points about the niki-tracy reversal and characters like micah and monica just disappearing. feels like the writers jumped in over their heads and are reaching desperately…but honestly, i still enjoy the show entirely. i think there is still a good balance of mystery and satiation within the plot and i think continued watchers will be rewarded.
anyways, just my opinion. just me.
It had everything to do with the writer strike. Have you seen any of the alternate scenes and peices from the differant episodes? Apparently not. The Season was supposed to be alot longer than what it was. They had to change every bit of it because it had to end early.
The writer’s strike had nothing to do with this show’s failure. The choice in season 2 to tell many disparate stories with no connection and no pay-off is what killed the show
Comment by Hank — November 2, 2009 @ 3:41 pm Reply to this post
haha this post is completely rediculous…
lol the whole reasoning of their choices for Season 2 is BECAUSE of the strike, duh!! OF COURSE it had EVERYTHING to do with the strike… Your right about telling many disparate stories, but one made THE ultimate connection. Hiros traveling to fuedal Japan… where he meets who? The main villain of season 2. They had to leave this story in… so we didn’t have an unknown, nameless, faceless, villain. If they leave out Hiros fuedal Japan story…they would of had to scrap Adam Monroe, and make a entirely new villian for Season 2, thereby losing all the written material they had done so far, before the strike. They would of had to start from scratch. The Strike had EVERYTHING to do with it…
Notice how Hiros journey in season 1 lead up to the finale, stabbing a non-regenerative Sylar. Same goes for Season 2… his travels directly affected the outcome. However, “because of the strike”, they had to condense alot of stories into 11 episodes or it could of been better. Altho i loved Season 2.. To me Season 3’s Volume 3 was the worst of all. They made up for it in Volumes 4 and 5 tho.
I am commenting on the fact that they did not have to get rid of him. I.E. – they could have just did what they did to HRG use Claire’s blood to bring him back. The fact that nobody in the show has thought of it is “lame”. If anybody has already posted this idea,I did not try to steal it. I just did not read all the posts as they were all sounding the same.
Tim Kring and his show are one trick ponies. It’s entertaining but there are episodes where there’s nothing going on. I wouldn’t blame the strike from damaging the show; if anything, it saved it. That shit would have been canceled at the end of S2.
I totally disagree! Heroes has gone from strength to strength and this season is the best so far! As for the effect of the strike yes Heroes lost momentum due to the number of episodes that were shown but season 3 and this season 4 have been great ad now that Heroes has great writers working on it it has been injected with a new life and the characters have more depth to them. If you have stopped watching due to season 2 then you have missed out big time Zach Quinto has been awesome as well as the others in the cast.
What have you been smoking? This show has squandered opportunity after opportunity in search of ratings and the story has never gone beyond banal. Go read a book.
You have got to be kidding me! Once the Petrelli family secrets were revealed and that whole Nathan-Sylar sctick…I bounced. This entire show is crap now. Lost its luster.
absolute bull crap..This season keeps me hanging on for the next episode every week…I started watching while season three was going on (we ended up buying season 1 and 2 before we ever saw an episode of season three) I was always under the assumption that this series was one of those that you had to see “from the beginning”.Once I got all caught up I realized that this show and its characters are interesting watch and you can’t wait to see who teeters on the fence as far as good or bad…This season especially..I hated when people bitched about season 2..So far this season the characters are really fun to watch because they are going back into the past, you have to wonder if Kring thought of that ahead of time…As far as Sylar goes, he is the best bad guy I’ve seen in a series for a long time,and he should stay…I think Adrian Pasdar’s character being let go was the only logical senario for the shows direction..and now we get to see what happened to sheresh….If anything quit the bitching…If you don’t like the show STOP WATCHING!!!And for those of us that do like it, I guess we will see what happens..
Yeah, I didn’t like the show so I DID stop watching- along with most other viewers.
Phooey on those of you who can only diss the show!!!
I have been faithful to Heroes since Day One – I’m hooked, and I’m fascinated! I was nearly in tears at the end of last week’s episode, and I’ve thought about that particular storyline a lot since I saw it.
Yes, the second season was lacking — I know several former fans were tired of Hiro’s story, since that was most of the show. But the writer’s strike was definitely to blame! Hiro’s storyline was probably the only one to have been completed. And it sucked with relation to the entire show, but did help with Hiro’s story. However, since then, the characters have grown and I am seriously enjoying the evolution of both Sylar characters.
Hey, don’t like it? Don’t watch.
Don’t want to know about it? Don’t read.
Its not so much because of the strike, but because Kring hasn’t got a clue (and Sylar should have been killed of 3 seasons ago)
THANK YOU!!!!!!
Jesus there are no consequences on the show. Kring stole X-Men, and still couldn’t get it right. In the X-Men movei even they killed off characters.
Hero’s is crap and they should have canned it after the first season. Now they will go to syndie with a shitty show.
heroes is not crap. you need to think before you say something negative. the show is good and the best thing thats on tv. if your one of those people that like disturbing crime shows, then that’s your lost. who ever wrote this article needs to grow up and actually look at what’s it’s gained in the past three years. it gained fans and got more views on the first season then any other show and was reconiginzed as one of the best sci fi shows. never have i seen any other show that actually got to travel to other countries to promote it. the reveiews were estatic and if you give it time then maybe it will once again be that great. you need to look at the full picture of this.
look at the reviews it gotten on tv reviews which is low but still alot, then look at the reviews online, look at how many people are watching tv show online including on tv. if you conpared those numbers you would realize it’s just as high as it is from the season 1.
if anybody thinks they can prove that wrong, be my guess because i can prove you wrong.
Actually, I think you need to think before you pump up substandared fare like this as “the best thing thats on tv”. If you’re resticted to rabbit ears & 3 network channels, then yeah, maybe it is the best thing you’ve got to watch. But once you throw cable into the mix (or even FOX, for that matter) tripe like this is exposed for what it really is. If you’ve never read a novel or a comic book and never seen a movie, then yes, Heroes is quite original. If you’ve the attention span of a gnat and no concept of continuity, the writing is brilliant. Even the highly touted first season (which I’ll readily admit to enjoying) was nothing but ideas and plots stolen from comics (and in a further insult to fans, the creator claimed to never have read a comic book…). The continuing plot thread from season one: stolen from the Watchmen (and poorly executed).
As for your point of lots of talk online=lots of viewers? Apparently you’re new to the internet. Look up “Firefly”, “Arrested Development”, or “Jericho” for proof that massive online fanbases do not mean people are watching the show. While you’re at it, pick up the DVDs for these shows to see what good television looks like.
Stop comparing HEROES to X-Men! Just because the show is about people with special powers doesn’t mean it’s a direct rip off. The X-Men family is HUGE and anyone writing something about people with special powers, even if they’ve gone their entire life not knowing about X-men, would somehow write characters that bare some resemblance to an X-men character. What about the fact that Heroes is WAY WAY WAY more believable than X-Men? Or that even with time travel there are no grand rewinds and mass resurrections? Even though Heroes is made in the comic book style, it’s still very much grounded in the real world and that sets it apart from such predecessors like X-men. Yeah they dropped off a bit there in season 2 and for a little while in season 3 but Fugitives and this current volume have very much redeemed the show. And what about the fact that they pretty much changed the very DNA of the show? Originally after vol. 1 was over, we’d be given a new set of characters, new stories, and a fresh start. but because the fans liked the cast so much, kring altered the show drastically and this probably threw some things out of line. they’ve made a lot of changes for we the fans so the least we could do is give them some room to breath and time to work.
…Sylar’s the only character that keeps the show going. The show would have been canceled after season one if it weren’t for him.
So true. The day Quinto goes is the day Heroes drops of my Tivo list.
Sylar is by far the best/most interesting character in the series, but I only realized that around season 2/3. Before that, I was all for him falling off a building and cracking his head open on the pavement. The main problem I have with him is how many times he has bounced back and forth: the whole I’m evil, I’m good, I’m evil, I’m good, I’m evil, I’m an amnesiac w/puppydog eyes and a gun while my mind is stuck in Parkman’s head sctick is getting old. A character can only bounce back and forth so many times. I know why the writers did it, b/c they knew sylar would be a more interesting villain if people both loved and hated him. It worked, but now theI loved the first season, they tied it up in a nice little bow and yet left you guessing on some major points. Season 2/3 were okay, but I began to hate certain stories. Unlike in the first season, when I enjoyed hearing most of the backstories, family secrets, and watching the turmoil, 2 and 3 left me just plain bored with some of them. After all, when a character’s best secrets are revealed, they do get boring (Ex: mama petrelli). I still like watching Heroes, but when it used to be my #1, it has dropped behind Dexter and Supernatural (and a few others). I don’t think it is the quality of the show that has dwindled, and I don’t really think it is the character killing. The latter is cruel but necessary because the writers can’t be expected to come up with so many secrets and lies to reveal for only 12 (or however many we began with) characters and string it along for 4 seasons plus. They NEED to introduce new blood, no matter how short lasting that blood is. The whole premise of heroes is a sci-fi/fantasy mystery where mutants(?) discover the truths about themselves, fight for their right to live, and learn the hidden secrets of those around them. And yes, I loved firefly, arrested development, and other shows whose broad fanbase couldn’t save them from the chopping block. I think heroes is still riding the wave from its 1st season, and NBC recognizes that it COULD be as amazing as s1 again, it just hasn’t quite figured out how. Sorry if I rattle on, or insulted anybody, but I’ve got a right to my opinions and I could go on for days about this kinda stuff. Just thank God I have to go pick up my laundry.
Wait, what??!
(He goes, I go.)
Is this true about AP being let go?
“More likely is that the show keeps suffering lousy ratings because it never recovered from being interrupted during the writers strike.”
That’s a nice story for those involved with the show to tell, but the last show of the first seasons was just awful, and the 2nd season didn’t even meet that standard.
The headline should’ve started “Adrian Pasdar Escapes…”.
since you seem to have stopped watching after the 2nd season you have no idea just how great season 3 was or how great this season is! I am sorry to hear that AP has been let go but we have some fantastic newcomers to the show ie Robert Knepper! It is people like yourself that never really got into the show in the first place that think it is bad but for those of us who have followed the show it has gone from strength to strength.
Sorry, season 3 sucked epically. As soon as the Papa Petrelli’s death was faked, they had the bogus storyline about Sylar being a brother to the Petrelli’s, and they had Sylar experiment with being “good”, the show became a bit predictable and played. They had good premise but they botched it. How many trite comic book conventions were they going to rip off and not twist in an interesting or different way?
How can you say that – If anyone out there truly understands that Tim Kring is doing nothing but ripping off the X-Men stories of Len Wien, Chris Claremont & John Byrne.
For god sakes, they are running the “CARNIVAL OF EVIL” comics from the early Byrne/Claremont days of the mid 70’s.
The ringmaster (Robert Knepper) is doing a perfect imitation of Mesmero – Who by the way was the ringleader of the carnival in both the early 70’s X-men comics, as well as the mid 70’s version!
Hollywood truly does not have a single original thought in it’s body!
Besides…
What if it is in fact Zachary Quintos that is being killed off?
Hear me out, If Sylar’s body is being used by Nathan’s memories * Sylar’s memories are stuck in Grunberg’s mind * in order for them both to find peace, two of the three characters have to die. Plus with Zack about to retake the role of Mr. Spock in the next Star Trek film, he probably needs to leave the show. That now makes more sense of why Sylar’s persona has been taking on such a large role most of the episodes this season. Just a hunch…
Thank you! A loud second to this comment. Tim Kring is aesthetically empty–never had the goods to deliver, and somehow everyone else got blamed.
I liked Adrian’s character and I’m “totally bummed” he won’t be on Heroes anymore (Hiro is my favorite character out of the bunch…I’ll stop watching if they axe him).
The failure of NBC network primetime is due only to the fact the executives get too involved in the shows and ruin them. Its not a recent trend, though it has been more obvious with good shows like The Pretender, Medical Investigation, Journeyman, and Freaks and Geeks being cancelled for no good reason. NBC has been doing this ever since the late Brandon Tartikoff left the network. Tartikoff was the only executive to spot good shows AND stick with those shows. They just don’t know what they’re doing over there. As long as they’re getting paid, they don’t care either.
Now, when good shows start on NBC…they’re pretty much doomed to be cancelled. Not everybody likes to be insulted with stupid reality TV shows or “blah” medical dramas (the only good ones of those on NBC were St. Elsewhere and the short-lived Medical Investigation). There are a few other shows left on the air that still make you think and feel like you were really entertained while learning something other than who can dance or sing the best…but those shows are on the other networks.
If another Heroes-type show came along on NBC, I’d still watch it…even if I knew it was going to be ruined eventually by the execs.
NBC is developing another superhero hourlong show this development season — isn’t it called THE CAPE or something like that? It’s being done through Berman Braun.
thank you someone who gets it! The NBC have butted in and put Heroes on at the wrong time for so long of course it is not going to fair as well as House or some other inane programme but Heroes is a great show and those that actually work on it are fantastic. Hopefully the NBC are listening to what we fans have to say. Tonight’s episode shows that they are beginning to give us fans what we want as they brought Isaac and Charlie back (for this episode anyway) and it is widely known that they were 2 of the most missed characters that were bumped off. and they seem to have got good writers that seem to care about the show working for them now.
OK, Brandon Tartikoff was pretty good, but he made mistakes.
He had the terrible habit of running the initial episodes of a new show completely out of order, making the show thoroughly incomprehensible! When the pilot runs as episode 5, no one knows what the characters are about!
And every time he did that & a show failed, he’s apologize & say he wouldn’t do it again.
And then he’s go out there & do it again & again!
I’ve always called that “Tartikoff Syndrome”.
And when Brandon left NBC, Warren Littlefield picked up from him & he also suffered from “Tartikoff Syndrome”!
But back to “Heroes”, this show has had ups & downs. The first few shows were bad, then it got better, then Kring came up with those two from Mexico with the weird eyes & the show hasn’t recovered.
Plus Sylar is just a ridiculous villain & should have been really truly killed off a long time ago.
And the previous season was just “As The Petrellis Turn”.
Who gives a shit!
Hiro was always the real find on this show & his part has been written ludicrously for two seasons.
I finally stopped watching a few weeks ago, but saw last weeks show & vowed NEVER AGAIN!
The same shit happened over at CBS…They cancelled Jericho after the first season then brought it back(because of the fans)for like 6 episodes…It was a fantastic series and it got canned because we need more reality tv? Bull crap….
So it’s Pasdar after all. Well, that’s the one dumb thing they haven’t done with the show yet. Then again, I couldn’t believe when they let go Leonard Roberts either.
Originally, all the actors were supposed to get axed after season 1 to be replaced with new characters and storylines. All the actors knew that going in, so none of them can complain now. Heroes should have stuck to the original plan. They didn’t and now all the characters have worn out their welcome. Was it an NBC directive to keep the “beloved” characters after season 1 and jettison the original idea? If so, congratulations NBC on killing another show. Genius at work.
That’s all the same information I knew. I think I am slightly bummed that we missed out on the ever changing cast. I guess the writers hadn’t been expecting such a fan base for the original characters.
Proof that listening to the watchers doesn’t produce a great show. Stick with you plan, people; we aren’t writers, we don’t know what we are talking about.
Proof that listening to the watchers doesn’t produce a great show. Stick with you plan, people; we aren’t writers, we don’t know what we are talking about.
You’re exactly right. Another show that suffers from this same affliction is ‘Supernatural’. The writers there have catered to the fans way too much, and the last couple seasons have suffered horribly because of it.
Getting back on topic, though, I watched ‘Heroes’ for half of the first season, but never could get into the show. However, I’m sorry for the fans who liked Adrian Pasdar’s character, as losing a long-running character on a show almost always sucks.
For the record: One of the biggest risks NBC ever took was on an initially low-rated sitcom called Seinfeld.
Now we have a network more inclined to play it safe and cut shows or their budget rather than invest in a show’s potential.
As one of the few who have actually stuck with Heroes through the years, NBC would be better off investing in better quality for their current shows (Heroes, Chuck, Friday Night Lights…. law & order is running thin) and trying to give good new shows a solid footing (In the battle of Trauma and Mercy, Trauma should’ve won even though the ratings are basically the same…but guess which one is cheaper to produce)
In other words, NBC took the easy way out by putting a talk show that’s wearing thin on five days a week instead of working on new innovative works. From the network that brought us the groundbreaking ER and West Wing, NBC has essentially given up all of its testicular fortitude. ’nuff said
Heroes suffered from a great number of problems – the least of which was the stupid strike.
And they kept the Matt Parkman character? Who is writing this show? 10th graders? As of tonight I delete it from the DVR.
I thought Kristen Bell walked.
“Poor Tim Kring”? He’s the biggest problem with the show! It’s funny that sometimes on other networks when shows go downhill the showrunner gets the boot. But Kring somehow still has a job running Heroes into the ground.
The biggest problem with Heroes is that the characters are the worst written characters on television. I have never seen characters that are more stupid than on Heroes.
Perhaps it is because of crappy ratings or because AP’s character, Nathan, was truly killed at the end of last season and is currently occupying the body of the awesome Sylar. So… I’m not too surprised about them letting AP go. Bringing him back in full would be ridiculous and Sylar’s storyline has finally come back up. Not a bad trade off, if you ask me.
The strike has nothing to do with it.
Season 2 was cluster-f**k of epic proportions. It’s very obvious that Kring didn’t have a clue where this thing was going.
Sylar killed him last season. It’s not a stretch or a surprise, and truthfully doesn’t impact the show as it is now in any way. And, neither Noah Gray-Cabey, Dana Davis or Dania Ramirez were killed. If you just mean not spotlighted as characters, you’re right. Unlike many, I still enjoy the show and the characters they’ve created.
Pasdar’s character was killed LAST SEASON. How is it a story, much less a shocking one, that he will no longer be on the show?
Most TV shows today are high-concept gimmicks for a good reason: They’re the scripted show answer to reality TV. Cost-control is the operating word. So the gimmick is the star, not the actors. Of course, character-based shows provide stronger ratings more consistently, but the networks are convinced that the ratings decline is a given, and so, implementing this safe, highly corporate, control-freak type of strategy, they perpetuate their low-ratings reality. There is no escape from this at least as long as the networks remain under tight parent-company control, or until the time there’s a network head with enough personality to hedge a bet and keep the parent company at arms-length.
I might just start watching Heroes now that the idiodic Adrian Pasdar is gone. He adds nothing to any show I have ever seen him on.
Get rid of Kring, you’ll have a better Heroes. Period.
The First season was only good beacuse “The Heroes” (characters) save the world. Since then, they haven’t saved shit! It’s like a bad soap opera now. Have them save the world again Kring and forget about that inner conflict bullshit… Do that, you’re golden.
Sorry to hear about Pasdar. He’s a good actor, but soon enough they’ll all be gone…
Along with ‘Sienfeld’, other shows like “Cheers”, “Hill Street Blues” and “Night Court” started with low ratings, but NBC believed in them, and they went on to win many awards, develop a HUGE audience, very high ratings. Their is something to be said for a Network who stays with a series to allow it’s fan base to grow.
Well, NBC has given HEROES three seasons, with the forth one currently underway. If you can’t grow your audience in that time, it’s not because the network isn’t giving you a chance.
I loved Heroes during its first season, continued watching it during its second season (but didn’t like it nearly as much), and gave up about four episodes into the third season. Sounds like I haven’t missed much. I’m not watching any series on NBC except for 30 Rock. There’s nothing else left to watch.
How does this author know it’s Adrian Pasdar for a fact? She doesn’t cite any sources.
I haven’t heard any of this reported anywhere else.
If it is, then they might as well cancel the show for all I care. He’s the best actor they’ve got.
The rumor that NBC has asked Kring to wrap everything up at the end of the current season is starting to look more plausable.
They did Pasdar a favor. This show is terrible
I agree! Pasdar was one of the few good actors on this crappy show. They got rid of him in time pilot season is coming up!
The problem with the show is the stability of it. Every other episode something changes so drastically that anyone that misses an episode gets lost. Characters go from bad, to good, to bad, to indifferent, to good, and then they lose their powers and that might be before the commercial break. The show changes focus constantly, you wonder if the writers have ADD or someone got fired in the middle of writing a script. Promising characters get axed so fast you wonder why they were introduced, and then they give the most annoying character (Claire) a larger part of the story and handicap the all powerful good guy (Peter). Plus, steering away from the wishes of the fans doesn’t go over well. We wanted a bid Peter/Sylar battle and never got one. And we were practically promised that Hiro was going to face a T-rex. Someone smack the writers and tell them to FOCUS!!!!!!
Heroes is the poster show for how NOT to do a serialized genre drama in broadcast primetime TV.
It started off with a great idea back at the beginning of the first season. Unfortunately one of two things happened after that. Either the producers had no idea where they wanted to go with the show and thus it seemed as if they were making it up as they went along, a course of action which introduced a lot of plot inconsistencies. Or they they had a plan but were so inept and incompetent that they were not able to realize it through the execution of their idea. Whichever it was through their colossal ineptitude they squandered an idea which had tremendous potential.
It wasn’t the writers strike. It was the fact that unlike many other series they decided to give up and take the easy way out by cutting and running instead of going out on a cliffhanger and taking up after the strike ended. Poor management. Not the strike. It only went downhill from there with the illconceived third season which bastardized the original premise from the first season and introduced even more plot inconsistencies. That is why the ratings have gone through the floor. The unrealized resolutions of character development resulting in numerous orphaned story arcs, the arbitrary deliberate termination of developing character arcs resulting in numerous dead ends, and finally just the generally poorly thought out development and execution of various story arcs.
Since the standard for NBC has essentially become that a show only gets to hang around as long as it doesn’t suck worse than The Jay Leno Show does anyone still actually watch anything on NBC?
I hate a hater… but I got to agree on this one. Complete agreement.
Heroes jumped the shark quite a while ago, only good thing is Hiro’s character, the rest is pretty bland and this season is the worst yet so far.
Noah Gray-Cabey was in the previous volume…did no one notice that he was Rebel?
How much longer can they keep grasping at straws for plot lines? I mean first you have an “evil” guy and a “good” guy that can both absorb multiple powers, then you take that away from the “good” guy and make him where he can only keep his “last” power. You make someone virtually invinsible and give her a sexual identity crisis, and it goes on and on.. What happened to the REAL good vs evil battle? How about the things that came from the future (like Hiro coming from the future speaking almost flawless English?) Perhaps Mr. Kring should watch season 1 over and figure out where it went wrong.
You can blame Kring for what happened to this show. He only had one great season in him. ONE SEASON !!!
To the writer and the majority of you people who obviously aren’t watching the darn show,
This cut makes perfect sense because Pasdar’s character DIED at the end of Season 3. Actually, his death was at the end of a story arc in which he finally accepted himself as a person with abilities rather than perpetually trying to blend in and ignore his ability. The decision to somehow bring him back in Season 4 disappointed me actually, as I thought he died nobly. So KEEPING him gone actually makes good sense. If they kill Sylar too and bring back some of the others like Dana Davis, we’ll be in good shape.
Dexter, House (and I think Burn Notice too) are shows that went through the writers strike and are still as good as in the beginning.
To be fair, Pasdar is no longer needed on the show since his character was killed in the finale of season 3. Pasdar was only needed for the first few episodes of season 4 due to plot regarding his murderer.
NBC is making a lot of boneheaded moves, but this really doesn’t seem like a valid criticism.
Honestly, Pasdar is a pretty solid actor, underestimated at least. (Near Dark probably being his most successful)
He was an asset that could have been easily used to the show’s advantage, but he fell victim to lousy scriptwriting. The first season was pretty good, but after that (as is seemingly the overall consensus) the show plummeted. No reason to feel anything towards Pasdar leaving the show, because the show is truly not worth any emotional investment one way or another. If you want quality in television shows, they are hard to come by, but personally I love It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and any of the Law and Order’s.
Also, whoever said that Hiro is there favorite character, clearly you are retarded because he is the most annoying piece of shit to ever stop time.
He was also amazing in _Profit_, a show that was too good to live… (As was Gary Cole in _American Gothic_ , both of which I’d take in a heartbeat before _Arrested Development_..)
Using the strike as an excuse is kind of moot at this point. Heroes has had two years to get everything back on track but they haven’t. They really need to sit down and figure out what originally made this show great and get back to it because right now they are running on EMPTY.
The real reason why Heroes is no longer as good as the first season, is because Hiro Nakamura is no longer the main character.
After the writers strike the show definately went down hill. It became too complicated due to the many characters and trying to include them into a 40 minute show. It sucks because I really do enjoy watching the show
I agree that Adrian Pasdar “escaped” from the show as previously stated. The problem with this show is not a lack of imagination, more a lack of a conclusion. This show suffers because the writers before and after the strike, fail to give the viewers any concrete conclusion on really anything. If you look back on previous seasons, you will notice that major-plots and sub-plots were never resolved. No wonder characters are being killed left and right, the writers don’t know how to conclude their individual plot lines. Give the viewers closer and the show may be able to stay afloat a little while longer. Don’t, and this show is destined to go the way of the Dodo.
Are you people aware that AP’s character was killed last season?
His appearances since then have just been as Sylar (taking the shape of APs old character). Once Sylar is cured of his current condition, the need for AP to work on the show is pretty much over.
While racy, this post is disingenuous — all those actor departures were not at the behest of NBC, but Tim Kring’s decision. Like people bad at business, if you have a problem, just get rid of some people and bring in new blood. The revolving nature of secondary characters who ended up taking all the storytime was a creative, Kring decision.
And Pasdar is out because they’ve literally killed him every single season, and the last one was supposed to be the final time (albeit delayed till this season, because the writing is just that good).
Heroes’s real problem? Cross Jordan creator does not a talented serial writer make.
Sad that they obviously wrote themselves into a corner and couldn’t get Nathan out. Very sorry to hear about Adrian!!! I’ve really missed him this season!
They stuck with Seinfeld… and Cheers, which came in absolutely dead last when it first aired. DEAD LAST. One of the highest rated and beloved sitcoms of all time. Same for Seinfeld. Network execs haven’t the slightest clue what to do, I’ve decided. So, they do ’something’ with the hopes of it eventually working. Because if they do nothing, and it works – they’re useless. Right? Can’t have that.
I’m OK with this, now Nathan can stay dead.
How about the fact that Nathan Petrelli was killed for real at the end of last Season and the show didn’t want to perform any tricks or reviving the dead to bring him back? Sometimes powerful and familiar characters must die and the actors must move on. How long could they keep Adrian Pasdar around with Sylar impersonating him, he physically was murdered at the Finale of Season 3.
How could they keep the actor in the show unless they kept doing flashbacks?
Ummm Noah Gray-Cabey came back in season three…
So did Kristen Bell. She was a recurring for season 3, and it was her choice not to do more episodes.
If Nathan isn’t coming back, neither am I. I’m not invested this season, so it will be easy to let go. If I read Adrian Pasdar is coming back, I will too.
honestly, at the end of season 3, i was hoping heroes would get the axe in favor of chuck. remember the character caitlin? the one that peter fell in love with in ireland, lost in the future, and never ever brought her up ever again. didn’t even mention her. it’s plot holes like that that make heroes a good show for the moment, but terrible to sit down and watch the seasons through. when you actually think about it, heroes is a big ol’ letdown. my faves are claire, peter, hiro & ando, (loved monica. hated that they dropped her character when “nikki” died.) i liked nathan, but he was kind of an annoying backstabbing bitch if there ever was one. i don’t understand why they ever had him hunt his own kind. and it’s stupid that they had him die and have sylar be him only to have sylar start coming through first thing in the next season. they need to actually think before they write, or they should just give up.
Didn’t Kristen Bell walk?
No, when Kristen Bell signed on to portray Elle Bishop it was understood from the beginning that she would only be able to stay for a very short time due to contractual obligations elsewhere. Kristen WANTED to be part of the Heroes cast, she enjoyed her time working on the show and DID NOT “walk” away from it, her role was intended to be short lived from the very start.
I don’t think so. Like Pasdar’s character, Bell’s character was killed by Sylar.
I can’t believe that people are still talking about this show! It should’ve been a one-season series. It was so painful to watch after that…
SPOILER ALERT – If you haven’t seen the finale of Heroes Season 3, read no further.
I like Pasdar a lot, but his character completely changed both in his motivations and personality whenever the writers got stuck. Oh, and of course there’s the fact that his character is DEAD. Tough to still be on the show when you are dead. I’m actually grateful that the show is finally going to let a main character die and stay dead. There are far too many resurrections on the show.
That said, tonight’s “Once Upon a Time in Texas” was a fantastic episode. Best all season.
No, if you paid attention to the beginning credits of the shows she was on from the start you’d notice the words “Guest Star”. With the exception of Nathan, every cast member who died was a “guest star”. This article is what we call gossip.
It’s not weird that he gets paid through the end of the season. Actors are routinely guaranteed their fees for all episodes produced in a season for which their option is picked up. It would be weird if he were not paid out for the balance of the season.
Jeph Loeb got all of the blame for the show’s downfall while getting the boot. Considering the writing has gotten more ludicrous since he left, I’m not sure how right that flack was. OTOH, Loeb seems to have been a big fan of Nathan, so deserves some blame. Even though he might rightly deserve some blame, Loeb was also part of some of the best years of Smallville. I would be excited to hear that Loeb had returned to that show, even if Loeb is still under the Heroes backlash cloud. It could just be a case of being a bad fit on one show and a good fit on another. I’d be willing to chance it anyway. Jeph, return to Smallville. Let’s see what would happen.
I’ve got a better idea — cancel “Smallville.” The show should have died years ago. Actually, for all intents and purposes, it DID die years ago, which is why I gave up on it in disgust. I’ve never seen a good show turn so rotten so fast.
Now YOU make sense. Someone wants to complain about superheroes with drama issues, take a long hard look at what used to be known as “The Man of Steel”. The way that show is going it’s more like “The Man of Steel Magnolias”. (chick flick reference, no one berate me for sounding idiotic) Back to Heroes, some things have been drawn out and others mangled, and for all Hiro’s power he does tend to lack common sense. But if everyone acted with above standard reasoning, no evil would have ever posed a “real” threat as Hiro would have just teleported them to the vacuum of space or lame but logical move like that. But also remember this, now this is important, the vast majority of these characters were thrust into this new life with special powers and world crisis. It goes without saying that a number of them would have trouble adjusting and would act with the level of intelligence they had as a “normal-ass” person. Sylar had identity issues before he ever knew he was special and even now that he has powers he’s just a super-powered walking mass of complexes, etc. I’m gonna stop rambling.
just cancel the fucking thing already.
“to just people who can lift a fork from their plate to their mouth”
That was precisely the show’s concept, no?
I have watched Heroes through all the seasons, haven’t misses a single episode, have seasons 1, 2 and 3 on dvd and will buy season 4 when it comes out on dvd. Although I will admit that season 2 was indeed a big let down because I really didn’t care for the Maya storyline at all, and I do believe that was mostly due to the writer strike, but I still feel that Heroes is a great show with plenty of potential to be renewed for at least a 5th season and I am sincerely hoping that it will be. For those who are complaining about the show, it seems many of you stopped watching after season 1 so how can you say that a series is bad if you’re not even bothering to watch it? How can you know it’s not completely brilliant if you haven’t watched since season 1 or 2? But regardless, if you don’t like the show then by all means, watch something you do enjoy but don’t sit there bitching and moaning about a show you don’t even follow, that’s just ridiculous.
Heroes is not a victim of the writer strike, but its own creator and writers. The show has no purpose, no story, no direction. They changed the direction so many times that it doesn’t even make sense anymore. yet they just keep adding and killing off characters randomly. Do what Lost is doing. Set an end date and go in one direction with a purpose, please!
The show was solid going into the Writers’ Strike, but staggered upon return. One of the first real mistakes was the loss of Ali Larter’s initial character(s) and then Larter herself. They also threw away Joanna Cassidy – WHY?!? You don’t throw away Joanna Cassidy, that’s just bloody wrong! Another mistake was the loss of a very simple idea that was at the core of the 1st season: Kring had said they were only showing the most interesting moments. They did that season 1, but then got more and more away from it. I stopped watching it last year and haven’t watched a single episode this year. I just can’t get worked up enough to check it out. Sad, really, because I used to love the show.
Season 4 has been the best in my opinion. I have only kept watching because it is something mindless to just sit and mindlessly enjoy but I have to admit that since they’ve killed off pointless characters and sacked the original writers, the show has moved forward and it seems to be working better than ever… perhaps even better than the first season. Perhaps some of you guys should give it a go.
This show is X-Men for the geriatric crowd. So much potential. They need to let the writers go!
Pasdar should be happy he won’t be on that crapfest anymore. Since the season 1 finale this show became intolerable and yet I suffered through season 2 and half of season 3 before I finally gave up. And I don’t miss it at all.
I wasn’t a fan of the second and third seasons, the fourth season is way better. They need a new villain, Sylar is a good character but he needs to die, disappear, or become good.
I think they were wrong to have taken Peter’s powers, after that there was no one to battle Sylar which spoilt the story line and meant that no one could defeat him, I lost interest after that.
Ermm…
Kristen Bell left the show on season 3.
The writer’s strike didnt force the makers of HEROES to kill it off by:
1. Beginning a tedious 4 or 5 episode arc in Samurai Japan – which ultimately was a waste of time.
2. Two South American heroes-road-trip-to-US arc.
3. Lack of central villanious figure a la Malcolm McDowell in Season 2.
Really guys, Season 2 was the beginning of the end and it never really recovered the audience base.
You’ve saved me having to write something myself as you’ve expressed my precise thoughts. Season 2 was a real dip and things just have never bounced back to Season 1 form. I thought Season 3 was a real improvement and while I like the Robert Knepper character and the “carnival” idea, things are bouncing around crazily so far this season.
I was certain they were going to kill Sylar, but I’m relieved beyond words to hear it’s Nathan who’s going, as Sylar is my favourite character.
To be honest, he’s the reason a lot of people watch Heroes anymore (includng me), and the show would _not_ recover from losing the brilliant Zach Quinto. The first season was so good, but I agree with the person who said that now the show feels like they’re making it up as they go along, abandoning good characters and storylines.
I’m sad to see Adrian go, though. I’m very fond of him.
Why does anyone at NBC still have a job. Zucker may be the most succcessful FAILURE since Les Moonves. The network does terrible and he gets rewarded
Can you believe that Comcast & GE are actually talking about having Jeff Zucker head up the new NBC Universal if that sale goes through? Why don’t they just drop nuclear weapons on 30 Rock while they’re at it?
No reason to worry about what will be in season four of Heroes. There won’t be one. This show is on it’s last legs. D.
“This season is the worst by far”
Completely disagree. For me this year has been a big improvement — ironically BECAUSE of the cost-cutting. We no longer have 12 leading characters and corresponding plots that are jumbled together with no cohesion at all. Instead the series is trying — not always successfully, but trying — to develop a smaller group of characters and the results have been, at the least, a heck of a lot more watchable than the last two years. Robert Knepper is doing good work in particular.
Honestly the Nathan character was a total wreck — no fault of Pasdar’s but the writing. Remember the first year when he had a wife (in a wheelchair) and kids? Then they dropped them with no explanation. Then he’s ashamed of who he is, then he isn’t. It was a frustrating character not helped by clueless writing.
The show, after Season 1, has always had this problem. After a great first year it was clear they had no real clue where each year was going, and some of the missteps were major.
That said does anyone care that Diana Ramirez was let go in Season 3? She was part of one of the worst storylines the series ever had. And Kristen Bell left — I don’t believe they “axed her.”
This season has been more entertaining, and interesting, than the last couple of years because it’s been dialed down and there aren’t as many characters on it. It’s still not totally “together,” and some of the writing at times is highly uneven, but it IS going back to the direction of Season 1, or at least its general tone. It may be too late, but it’s also NBC — if a series has a pulse it’ll be sticking around, and hopefully HEROES will be.
This show is terrible, I watch season 1 which I really liked and I got through season 2 but season 3 was awful and season 4 I have not watched. I feel cheated by NBC because all they do is charge top dollar (the amount of commercials and ads through out the show) for crap. This show I believe had potential but they really messed it up.
Now Adrian can go star on his own series.
HEROES has been over for me since the second half of season one.
Poor Tim Kring? Oh bite me — every show was affected by the writers strike, and a good many didn’t immediately turn into a steaming pile of crap. I’m actually one of those who thinks Heroes has improved this season, but it’s still far too little, fat too late.
Adrian Pasdar will be missed. I had likened him to Kenny on South Park or Daniel Jackson on Stargate SG-1 – kill ‘em and bring ‘em back – but that doesn’t look like a possible scenario this time around.
I guess it’s just well since the show is tanking faster than a fishing boat on Deadliest Catch.
This is just one more way NBC has proven it is totally clueless when it comes to handling the Sci-Fi genre.
Aren’t these are the same people that wanted to broaden the audience base of the cable network SciFi by changing it to SyFy… which now makes it look like text-speak for a popular communicable disease.
Good news for Adrian Pasdar and his career. This is the equivalent of getting a spot on a lifeboat on the Titanic.
Heroes numbers are HUGE on DVR/TiVo. I’ve read reports they keep increasing too.
This season has been the best in a long while, but I do wish they’d move things along a little better. The story with Noah and the lady partner last night was nothing but filler and could have been axed and the story could have been moved along a little faster.
Stop with the filler and get to the heroic deeds of Heroes.
Reading these posts my mind churns over a very limited understanding of how this industry makes money and the philosophy of its ‘revenue streams’. Is it at the heart of Hollywood’s conflicting interests, it’s warring camps and confused vision? What happens to the quality of ‘content’, when the content may be licensed seemingly forever for clear profit in the future – even really mediocore content, like some promising drama that got lost after a few seasons? Apart from the bragging rights at awards shows, does it still matter if a movie or television show is ‘good’, when net profit may be two years (or more)away and ‘profitablity’ is not at the box office. Only the economics of the industry can make sense of this to me, when movies get made that never should have gotten the greenlight, and television shows should get axed long after the audience has thinned out, but somehow continue to get renewed. Is it why characters don’t die or don’t stay dead? Or they’re immortal and/or undead? To my mind there seems to be some logic in creating characters who are not quite dead, not quite alive, not quite real or human, more of an ‘idea’ or iconic image that can be sold beyond memory. Perhaps those execs, MBA’s, accountants and lawyers are not so short-sighted after all; they’re working on a different timeline.
Just musing outloud – I can see some of the warp and weft of Hollywood but still haven’t seen the big picture – even after reading ‘The Big Picture’.
It wasn’t the writers strike that killed Heroes… it was bad writing.
Nathan will always be a possibility as long as Sylar is alive. Evil Sylar will always want the political power Nathan had and to screw with Peter and Angela (revenge now comes to mind..for Angela turning him into Nathan).. so the real “big death” of the season has to be Sylar. That is the ONLY way that Nathan stays dead. This is a leak to cover the big shocker.
You kill off Sylar’s character and you have not one but two actors blind sighted by the move and THEN it actually fits the original hints that the move was shocking and a game changer for the show.
Geeks.
Been a fan of this show through the thick and the thin, and thin it has been. Still this show is better than all the doctor/cop shows that there are.
Comic book appeal is what drew us in and for the most part they have done an average job. They really should have retired Sylar for a season or two and kept to the real draw of having the villains being really bad and having a mistique about them. That is why sylar was so popular, we all hated him, and he was bad and his character was developed well. They never did this for any of the other villains. well thought out super bad guys are what people want, and heroes just hasnt delivered.
PS since the day i read the article that Tim Kring doesnt read comic books is the day i knew this series was going downhill.
HRG should have his own show.
The show died halfway through season 2. What we’ve been watching since then is it’s carcass dancing around. Might as well have watched ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’
While I don’t agree with you, I still had a good laugh at the Weekend at Bernie’s reference, nice one.
How is NBC saving money if they’re paying him through the rest of the season?
Stilll, that’s too bad for Ol’ Chipper.
Heroes lost momentum in such a short span. In the beginning it had the mantra, “Save the Cheerleader, save the world”. Once that was done, there was no set goal. Though it parallels X-Men’s Mutant Agenda in last seasons’s show, it still did not have a purpose. What was there to keep the audience tuned in? There was always a peril going on and action. This season lacks action and a sense of dread. Sure, they went with the “stunt” lesbian thing to bring in the juvenile boys and men but where was the story? It didn’t work. Unless they are actually in bed naked, sucking and licking, please stop with the fake and phony lesbian bit. You’re doing yourself a disservice and you insult the viewer’s intelligence. The show has been on life support and the few that still tune in want that magic back. What is Claire really doing? She’s in college just being a girl. Screw the sorority crap and focus on some classroom dynamic. She could be in a lab dealing with a sociopath professor or some experiment that goes horribly wrong. But no, we’re stuck watching a female version of a Paris Hilton movie that really sucks. Adrian Pasdar was technically killed off last season and the idea that Sylar would be him was a stretch in the first place. And someone was right in the post, Sylar should have been killed off a long time ago. As much of a bad ass he is, the show is now centered on his character instead of the cheerleader. We’ve seen all of the tricks and now he’s playing mind games.
And yes, many of the most likable characters have disappeared with no explanation. There is a lot of MIA going on. I was disappointed in the last two airings of this show. Way too much time of Claire and the lesbian running around in an abandon building. And the two other girls was just hackneyed bimbo characters that should have been killed right then and there. If NBC has tinkered with this show because of budget constraints, they have effectively killed off this show through viewer apathy. I have come to accept that if this show doesn’t come back, I won’t be disappointed. What I am disappointed about is the course in which this show has fallen so far in such a short span. The writer’s strike is a lousy excuse as it has been over with long enough for this show to have come up with better storylines and better plot twist.
I was truly disgusted with how the Hiro character had not grown mentally after all of the things he had gone through. They still portray him as some naive puppy who still has some Disneyesque complex. He’s seen killing, he’s killed and yet he’s stuck on this “good guy” kick when he should have been more dark with his moods. Now that would have been a better approach with Hiro going dark and dealing eith what he had to do to save the world by killing Sylar.
And what the hell happen to Peter? He can only have one power at a time. That was a huge shift of watering down the characters. Why did all of the characters become so low rent this season?
I loved season one, sat puzzled through season two, suffered through season three, and after watching the season four finale, finally decided that enough was enough and quit.
The problem with Heroes wasn’t the strike or even those incompetent NBC execs (for once). It’s Kring. He had an amazing premise but didn’t think about how to develop the characters.
Claire is still whining about not being “normal.” Hiro (who was my favorite) is still mired in child-like enthusiasm. Peter is still the martyr. HRG is still compromising his morals to get things done.
Only Sylar evolved and that was in a bad way. He went from being deliciously evil to the typical “evil due to childhood wounds” which is neither original nor compelling.
And the season-long storyline gets weaker and weaker.
Kring should get his butt kicked for being so incompetent.
The problem is the show’s structure itself. It does not know if it wants to be a soap opera (appealing to women) about how people screw up their lives, or a traditional hero show (appealing to men) about how people fix their lives.
To appeal to men, the show has to have the traditional, male-oriented action whereby characters become better people through doing things and overcoming obstacles. To appeal to women, the show has to have lots of meaningless sex, death, and relationship screw-ups. What Kring and others have done is combine the worst aspects of both into a meandering, ponderous, SLOW mess that holds the interest of very few.
If you are a guy, Burn Notice or White Collar or Psych has you covered. Traditional male-oriented action roles where guys recover their lives by doing. If you are a gal, Desperate Housewives or umpteen reality shows with soap opera stuff has your dysfunctional drama covered, better and more of it.
Orson Scoott Cards’s analysis of the ‘romantic’ hero from his introduction to ‘Speaker for the Dead’ – “. . .The romantic hero is unconnected. He belongs to no community; he is wandering from place to place, doing good (as he sees it), but then moving on. This is the life of the adolescent, full of passion, intensity, magic and infinite possibility; but lacking responsibility, rarely expecting to have to stay and bear the consequences of error. Everything is played at twice the speed and twice the volume in the adolescent – the romantic – life.
Only when the loneliness becomes unbearable do adolescents root themselves, or try to root themselves. It may or may not be in the community of their childhood, and it may or may not be their childhood identity and connections that they resume upon entering adulthood. And,in fact, many fail at adulthood and constantly reach backward for the freedom and passion of adolescence. But those who achieve it are the ones who create civilization.”
The central dilemna(imho)in the first two seasons was that Peter, unable to control his collective powers, would go nuclear and destroy civilization. The heroes worked to stop the inevitable. His brother sacrifices himself (seemingly) by transporting Peter into the upper atmosphere to exploded safely. Civilization was saved. The heroic cycle was complete. At that point the writers needed to come up with a new, equally compelling problem for the heroes to solve, but it never really materialized. Do traditional storytelling models still work well enough to hold the attention of today’s busy audiences over several seasons? (How were ‘Merlin’s’ summer ratings?) If traditional storylines don’t work (or not for long),what kind of stories will? I agree with a previous poster who said that only innovation will get the film industry out of this rut. Spend more, not less.
On behalf of women everywhere, I’m insulted.
Okay, not really. But I’m mystified. I’ve always preferred shows where people overcome obstacles and fix things – when a show dithers and denies character development, I lose interest. (That’s why I dropped Smallville after the hundredth episode, and wished I had sooner.) I think most people, male or female, prefer shows with SOME development.
Likewise, no one wants to see shows where there is no tension, where the obstacles are easy and the characters never screw up. That’s boring.
What’s needed is a good balance of problems and solutions. The chief problem with Heroes isn’t that the characters keep screwing things up – although that is a problem – but rather, as noted above, that the writers don’t follow arcs through. Because they can’t figure out where they’re going or how to deal with new situations, they quickly try to backpedal to the status quo and end up with zero net character/plot development.
I still cling in desperate hope.
What Kirala said. (Except the still-clinging part.) Very, very well put.
By the way, I’m a “Psych”/”White Collar” girl myself. Tried to watch one episode of “Desperate Housewives” and was bored out of my skull.
Okay, you have a point but I think you’re talking about Hollywood’s stereotypical ideas of what “women” and “men” want in their entertainment. Please don’t generalize. Not all women are interested in watching relationship drama (especially if it’s badly written, as Heroes is!). I’d much rather watch an action/adventure show where people overcome obstacles, than some angsty soap.
I agree with you that the Heroes team has failed to provide the former because they’re bogged down in the latter. But are they really trying to appeal to female viewers with the angst, or do the producers simply think “dark and edgy” is more artistic and award-worthy than an uplifting story about overcoming obstacles? A lot of shows kill off fan’s favorite characters because they think if they’ve hurt the viewers they must be creating some powerful, awesome storytelling. Plus it’s a desperate ratings stunt.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure all of us who initially tuned into the show, both male AND female viewers, were hoping for an uplifting action-oriented story about solving problems/saving the day. The show *is* called HEROES after all. Not “Villains Kill Off All The Cool Heroes HaHa! Suckers!”
kill the cheerleader save the series !!!!
People always say it was Season 2, season 2 that killed this show…Even the biggest haters will give a great show another chance after a subpar season, so while yes the show goes down from season 2, there is no way on god’s green earth that Season 2 was worst than season 3…Season 3 was epic failure beyond words…These mofo’s stole the plot FROM LOST about a cult group of people//doctors//scientists killed and buried in a LOST camp (Petrelli flashback secrets arc)…
I kinda liked the Samurai stuff in the start of S2 and that likable unkillable fellow who was Hiro’s friend//foil…Visually it was pretty good, but season 3 needs to be put up there as one of the worst in television history…What they did to doctor Saresh turning him into “whothef#cknowswhathewas” was beyond tragic…
The thing that’s really killing this show even more is the lack of a true main character and main antagonist…It’s so easy to fix…Make Peter and Sylar the two main characters…BOOOM! See how easy that was…But no they rather sell out Hayden Pantieswearing and her just above average bod, and her totally CIRCULAR and CYCLICAL storyline and hope to get 15 year old boys to fap off to her for ratings…That girl has the most useless storyline in TV right now…
This season has actually been decent to boring as hell but still promising, but every Claire-centric ep just drains the small energy bar worth of life outta it…Now I gotta watch this fugly fake Lez-girl mind-raping Claire instead of Peter and Sylar hunting each other…It’s sad cause the show has about 5 really good actors (Milo, Quinto, Horn-Rims, Ando, Parkman, Carney-dude–Yeah sorry pretty much all the actresses suck and that’s sad), and if they just kept them on-screen in high octane or high intense moments you could salvage this thing, but Heroes can’t even fall on it’s strength in a crunch…The Quinto-Parkman scenes are truly great and worth watching unlike most of the show…
Pasdar is another good actor who is too good for this $hit…I’ll miss his “Greater than thou” character, but honestly he couldn’t help this show anymore and I’ve already written too much to explain more…
The show still exists because audiences love the idea of people with magic powers. Seems like it takes a long time for people to get over the idea that these people with magic powers are written like an inept chess player. People will still be talking about this show until the next super power show comes along
I would have preferred if Hiro gets the axe, mostly because the writers have been making him a joke. His arcs are getting boring. Also you can’t kill off the cheerleader in reality, Claire and Sylar are the reasons why the series is still alive.
I am so angry at the decision to take Nathan out of Heroes.
What are they thinking?
He gets axed at the expense of the boring as hell girl who can see colours*yawn*,and the CGI which are so not helping the really bad story lines and the motley crew of carnival folk,who serve no purpose except to take screen time away from over more important cast members…
Or,is it too cortly to have flying man in their,does the flying steal too much of their budget that their paying Robert Knepper,their shiny new toy.
Arhhhhhh.Make save Nathan Petrelli sites.Now!
I hate it when a series I’m into gets rid of a regular character, so for that reason I’m sad to see Adrian/Nathan go. I LOVE Heroes, it’s one of my favorite shows. I only started watching it a year ago (caught up on past episodes on Netflix/online, then watched season 3 on tv). I didn’t think the show would be something I liked, but I was hooked from the first episode. I’ll admit it has lost a bit of the momentum it started with, but I still look forward to every episode & won’t miss one if it’s at all humanly possible!!
**OH & for the few who bashed Sylar – SERIOUSLY? He is the most exciting character IMO**
Full frontal nudity should raise the ratings. Oh wait we’ve already seen Madeline Zima on Californication and that didn’t work.
I enjoyed the first 3 seasons, but season 4 is a real letdown. Season 4 should have moved the series forward, but it appears to be going backwards with Hiro going back 3 years to save a previously dead character, the waitress.
So I say, kill the waitress subplot and the Sylar subplot and move on to new stuff. Heroes need some new material or it won’t survive!!!
I heard of a recent character death occuring lately and If Pasdar is leavbing it may be him even though NAthan’s technally already gone. I’m shocked people bash HEROES so much. I honestly love this series and feel that the other 3 seasons actually were good and that most bad reviewers shouldn’t commenting right here.
No offense but you’ve stopped watching then how would you know where the show is at now or if it;s good besides just because you don’t like it dosen’t mean it’s crap it just means you don’t enjoy it that’s no reason for it to be axed prematurely .
I think that the Heroes now is the best TV SHOW with LOST and V , HEROES is getting better now , I can’t wait to watch the episodes from week to week , I wanna see them all.
to whom doesn’t like the SHOW , why do you still watch it now !!? just leave it ! I bet that you can’t ! , you just now trying to kill the SHOW for some agenda.
the SHOW has a lot of fans around the world.
Heroes will live on forever no matter what you jerks say. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. If you didn’t watch it, how can you insult it? Heroes is a wonderful show and I will keep watching it.
When are the studios going to insist that creators of long-form dramas either plan them out from beginning to end–or slate them to run only a certain number of seasons? If I had a buck for every one of these series that has fallen prey to “X-FILES disease,” I could start my own network. And HEROES is a really heartbreaking example because its first season had it all–great characters; suspenseful plotting; and plenty of twists. The show didn’t stick with its strengths–and it didn’t continue the excellent idea of having each season be about an event the heroes had to avert–or not.
honestly, I have noticed these faults but immensely enjoyed all seasons. What Heroes needs is to stop recycling ideas, and honestly, since this is a character-based show, STOP RESURRECTING EVERYONE! Something epic needs to happen, like Sylar finally dying (I love the character, but it’s getting old and we need a new villain that is as good as Sylar from season one, or Arthur from season 3.) And, as stunning as Claire looks, I think her story could definitely come to a close, that’s getting stale as well and slowing down every episode.
I loved volume 1 to death, enjoyed volume 2 (but didn’t like how it was cut short, it kind of hurt it), volume 3 I felt redeemed the show a good deal, volume 4 annoyed me but I still enjoyed it, and it got real good towards the end. And now, with volume 5, I have to say, so far so good, but with its definite faults. I like Nathan’s character, but he has literally died at the end of every season… I’m glad they are finally clearing that up. I think once the Sylar/Nathan fiasco wraps itself up vol. 5 will really get better.
I think vol. 5 feels more like season 1 than the others, but I think it should have more focus. Season 1 had a clear antagonist and protagonist, and overall goal, but still had great mystery. The show continues to have good twists and characters, but they should kill a few off for GOOD. Just keep Peter and give him his fucking power back
I watched heroes volumes 1-4. I couldn’t drag myself to waste an hour each week watching volume 5.
Volume 1 was great. I love it. It had a beginning, a middle and an end. And the plotlines actually hung together well.
Season 2 was slow, dull and full of not just unanswered, but never to be answered questions. For instance, why did Peter wind up in a shipping crate in Ireland? And why is Sylar still alive? But there was a writer’s strike. So okay, fine. I’ll count season 2 as a buy.
Then came volume 3. Where basically theypicked storylines at random and threw them together. I actually thought the show was going somewhere cool for the first 4-5 episodes. Then copious amounts of WTF hit the show like a 18 wheeler. Is Sylar good or bad or good or bad or…??? Why did Arthur not bother to take Sylar’s power? Spider Mohinder! The eclipse of ultimate letdowns. HRG, take the shot! Double tap, make sure Sylar is dead. If HRG was half the man Jack Bauer is Sylar would have been in 12 pieces by the time the eclipse ended. We are getting rid of time travel! No, wait we aren’t!
Then came volume 4. I’d say the writing started to get better or at least level out. Danko was about the only character I liked in volume 4. But the WTF express wasn’t done yet. Let’s put Sylar in a road trip with a whiny emo boy. Let’s make Nathan randomly decide that we should go from giving people powers to locking up everyone who has powers.
Then the show didn’t just jump the shark. Oh no, that would be too easy. Besides, it jumped the shark back in volume 2 or 3. The show jumped a whole row of sharks – sharks lying on portapoties on top of flaming El-caminos. Shapeshifting immortal Sylar tries to become president and winds up becoming Nathan and stuck in Parkman’s head! At the same time!
I just couldn’t watch it anymore after that. I would be inclined to give it another try if they kill off Sylar. I might watch the volume 5 finale just to see how much more screwed up the show can get. Heroes in space! With talking dogs!
Amen to the person above me. I was laughing the whole time I read that post.
Heroes has jumped the shark too many times and the only reason it is still running is because of it’s powerful first season (or Volume I). I remember during that time you couldn’t walk down the street without hearing about Heroes and what’s going to go on next week (exaggerating a little
.
But still, the show actually had meaning back then – it had a plot, unlike today where the story goes into 10 different areas, plot lines, and timelines (seriously…).
I will have to say though, personally, Sylar is the only character I find interested on that show anymore. Samuel just makes me furious because he isn’t strong at all, he can die just like anyone else. Here are three prime examples of plot lines that went wrong (JUST IN VOLUME 5):
1) Tracy Strauss (Remember at the end of Volume 4? She was depicted as being the next villain and everyone thought she was replacing Sylar now and going to kill everyone); How long did that last? 2 episodes tops?
2) Girl-who-can-see-colors (She lasted a whole long while — oh wait she’s been forgotten for about 3 episodes now stuck in a hospital waiting for Hiro to come back and get his damn tumor taken out of his head).
3) Sylar at the carnival? – he basically came to the carnival under Samuel’s persuasion and then just left without any real revelation happening to him. Like great, he got his memories back and then, what now? They don’t need him anymore?
– I personally hope Sylar gets his full body back (good riddance Adrian Pasdar) and slices Ms. Petrelli and Samuel Sullivan’s heads off. Then the story can go back to it’s best villain – Sylar.
I’m still loyal to Heroes, but for how much longer I’m not sure.
I agree with a lot of the views people expressed above about previous seasons, but the key thing is how the show looks after Xmas. They desperately need to have a plot that leads somewhere and stop picking up and dropping characters at random.
That the Hatian has come back bigger than before, to plainly reduce the CGI costs (see Sylar v Peter fist fight) while maintaining the token black guy, is a real shame. I keep feeling sorry for the actor, as he says one word here or there and fades out. Either he’s an awful actor, or it really is a callous race issue.
Nathan’s disappearing family is my other major gripe with the show. Hence for me, the only sensible conclusion was to kill him off, lest have some even less believable explanation for their absence play out. Though it’s a shame the writing didn’t prevent such a credibility gap, as his link to the political world and love-hate relationships with Peter and his mother were some of the better plot devices.
My suggestions:
Sullivan’s band of tortured freaks needs to do something rather than just recruit, or be written out/ murdered by Sylar.
Peter needs to ‘re-learn’ his original ability.
We need Hiro to bring everyone together to kill Sylar once and for all to perhaps end the show on a high.
If they get that much right, maybe they could come up with something plausible as a new ‘raison de etre’ for the heroes. Since Sylar didn’t die in the first series, each since has become an attempt to keep him (and the viewers he pulls in) alive. The show either needs to kill him and conclude, or kill him and move on to something new and interesting (if the often lacklustre writers can think of something). The whole plausibility of the show rests on the other heroes taking him down for good. – can they afford the CGI to actually have a full-on confrontation with Sylar? Who knows.
Guys, its gonna get better, Season 5, Volume 6..
When the archvillain Syler is back, in full force…
When the Heroes fulfill their ultimate destiny…
This will be their final season.
Season 5, Volume 6 Spring of 2010.
Notice how each season had a villian… Keep them in mind, and its east to see their goals..
Volume 1: Syler
Volume 2: Adam Monroe
Volume 3: Arthur Petrelli
Volume 4: Goverment Building 26
Volume 5: Circus
Volume 6: Syler for The Final Season
I just started watching Heroes this December, 2009, and i already figured this out… So relax everyone who says the serie slost them, or gave up on the stories… Sylers been on the back burner for awhile… he’s the archvillain.. they’ll meet him again, they can’t face him every year.
And fans of Peter… He has perhaps the ultimate power, ANY power. He can’t possibly have all that all 5 seasons… He’s too strong.. They needed to weaken him on many levels to save story… They have also said, the Heroes find out that each one has problems that occurs because of their power.. We are already seeing this with Hiro… but by the time Sylar threatens the world again.. they’ll be ready… Trust me
Bring back Adrian Pasdar!
Since Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar) officially vanished from the show on November 30, 2009, I have not cared about HEROES as much. I fell in love with the show, as well as the Petrelli Brothers, during the very first episode. However, over time as the characters were written with less consistency with no regard for past actions, I found that I was mainly watching for Nathan and the Petrelli brothers. Today the show overly focuses on a villain instead of the heroes and should be retitled SYLAR instead of HEROES. It is not the same show I fell in love with at the beginning. (And declining ratings seem to indicate that I am not alone in these thoughts.) Now I force myself to watch as a “closure” thing to see what happens that may still connect to Nathan. I am happy that Nathan died a Hero, but his removal from the show in such a manner has disappointed me, as well as the decreasing focus on “heroes.” When this season finally ends, I am sad to say that watching HEROES will probably end for me as well.. . UNLESS they bring back Nathan Petrelli/Adrian Pasdar!